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“It’s beautiful!”
Celine’s eyes were glittering in admiration of their perched panoramic view of Sa’Cardo Cove and the ocean beyond. The city nestled inside the mountainous sea wall that blocked much of the powerful ocean attacks that would have wiped the location off the map; a lighthouse tower shaped like an extended, spiraling sea shell rested atop one side of the sea wall and lowering her gray gaze she would find a large chokehold gate had been built in-between the gaping entrance of this encircling wall. Celine’s eyes could follow the main trail from where they stood to spiral amidst numerous differently sized buildings built in imitation of conch shells until it swirled down to the center of the city where the oldest buildings were built from actual beastly sized shells. If Celine were to squint her eyes, she could trick herself into looking at a beach filled with such towered and spiraled shells in so many beautiful colors. Along the inner shores of the cove rested the many docks and ships, most were fishing boats and trade ships from around La’an, some were even those new trade ships from Bel’Isles that her Mame had described, and few were war ships.
“They have come a long way from a few dead Ancient Sea Snails and rickety shacks.” Bahamut low whistled in admiration for the differences in the centuries since he helped save the village from the Ancient Sea Snails.
“Wait, those giant shells in the center are actual shells?”
“You can’t tell?”
“Um... Well, sort of?”
Bahamut chuckled and ruffled Celine’s kerchief covered head. “Right, I keep forgetting you haven’t travelled far from your town. Yes, those giant buildings in the center are indeed made from the very Ancient Sea Snails that I helped kill. At the time they had become corrupted and the party I was assisting saw to eradicating them and saving that long ago sea village. I recall they did consider reusing the shells for shelter, who knew they actually did and even built an entire city inspired by those shells.”
“That is amazing!” Celine whispered with the glittering admiration she had of the view moments ago now staring at the Dragoon. He couldn’t help but flush in modesty and scratch his cheek, looking away for a moment.
“I assure you; my team did most of the work. I only assisted when they called for it.”
“My, Bahamut, are you actually being modest of your role in the creation of Sa’Cardo?”
He turned a flat expression towards Celine then held up Marshmallow by their scruff, “What are we going to do about this? We can’t have them go running around stealing from market stalls whenever it sniffs out the rare ingredients up for sale.”
Celine blinked at Marshmallow and they blinked right back at her, both of them expressing confusion on how the oin’coon went from sleeping curled up on Jack’s back to Bahamut’s hand. She reached out to it and gently guided it into her arms with Bahamut releasing the scruff with no protest to the change of hands. “Marshmallow, could you stay on Jack’s back while we’re in Sa’Cardo unless you need to relieve yourself?”
It looked warily at Bahamut’s hand, clearly thinking he would be the one to punish it if they dared take anything in the city. Marshmallow nodded their head, squeezing its little paws on Celine’s sides as it hugged onto her. She wasn’t about to correct its assumptions of what would happen if it stole from a stall, just patting it comfortingly.
“Mm, we’ll see how long it takes you to stay on Jack.” Bahamut stretched his arms, thinking back over their time in the forest. They had taken a day longer to arrive at the Cove as he wanted to be positive Celine could defend herself well enough. The first couple of days saw him giving direct instruction from stretching to striking, then the last few days he only intervened when necessary until his intervention was decreased to just a few times in the day. He took note on how Celine had not received any opaque boxes that would have announced her increase in skill levels or even obtaining a new skill, but she did improve none the less. Curious about that difference between the PC and the NPC, he wanted to keep watching her to see if she could even gain special attack skills like a PC or if she is just limited to standard fighting.
Celine set Marshmallow back on Jack and took hold of Jack’s reigns. “Shall we go looking for the headquarters? I would think it’d be one of those center buildings?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. This guild thing is new to me.”
“Guilds didn’t exist before you were imprisoned?”
“No.”
They passed under the guarded entrance of Sa’Cardo after Celine showed the flier to one of the guards as a reason for their visit. She requested directions to the location but they just waved her on to speak with the visitor behind them.
“How rude, it was just a simple question.”
“Would you like me to-“
“No, you are not blessing them or anything of the sort.”
“Your loss of entertainment.” Bahamut half smirked with a wink that drew a sharp laugh from her. “Let’s keep following the main road and see what happens. I saw the market was just a little way down.”
“Sure. So, how did you join a party of adventurers if there were no guilds?”
“I just did?”
“Did what?”
“I just joined whatever group that tickled my fancy for missions that seemed entertaining and purposeful.”
“Really? No going through an organization that would assign you to a mission and groups?”
He snorted at that thought, “It needn’t be so complicated. The fliers at your tavern were the one way for PCs to access missions and they could decide to solo or gather a group.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
She canted her head in thought to the scenario he described, turning her gray gaze from him to look ahead and brighten at the sight of the colorful and crowded market. “Wow! This is even bigger than our fairs back home!”
“Keep hold on Jack.” He stepped around to the other side of the mu’ass, keeping track of the crowd around them to be sure thieves wouldn’t take their stuff.
The stalls lined along the road boasted of large quantities of food, fabrics, gems, jewelry, you name it and it was there. He watched Celine in amusement as she acted like a child in a store filled with toys, ooing and awing over just about everything. Further amused over how she would even haggle prices on the cooking utensils that could replace the cracked and broken ones in their packs. They enjoyed various foods that caught Celine’s interest, rolling his eyes as she attempted to learn recipes from the ones that gave her full inspiration, this time not stepping in to offer his treasure in trade. None of the vendors agreed to teach Celine, which he did expect, when she offered to assist them since they were asking a rather high number for their recipes.
“CATCH THAT FOX!”
They stopped and looked behind them to see a chase scene in action of a baker clumsily trying to grab a gold shaded twin-tailed fox that was running with a sack in its mouth.
“Are those… boots?” Celine blinked as the quick moving fox jumped up in the air and they saw boots on her hind legs. She then realized that the fox was jumping right at Jack and deftly grabbed Marshmallow off his back. Within the same moment as her grabbing the oin’coon, the fox landed on Jack's back, startling the mu’ass into the motion of kicking his hinds out with a loud bray, then she pounced right off Jack’s rear to get up onto the top of a stall with the clear intention of losing the Baker amidst the stall cloths before disappearing into an alleyway. Bahamut flicked a finger just as Jack started his hind kick and sent a broom to fall off a nearby market stall, which then gets caught in the baker’s feet, making him fall towards the mu’ass’ hind hooves. Onlookers watched as the fox got away, the nearby guards not bothering to help the baker catch a wild animal that successfully got away with his baked goods as the baker gets kicked in the chest and sent flying some feet away onto his back. Nearby healers that watched this entire scene unfold ran over to tend to the now injured and knocked out baker.
Celine stared with an open mouth to how everything just happened all at once then slowly turned to look at Bahamut in bewilderment. He locked his gaze with hers and nodded for her to follow him. She shook her head in hopes that could shake off the shock of the moment then settled the oin’coon back on Jack. Turning, she grabbed hold of the now calmly satisfied Jack’s reigns and followed Bahamut with a raised brow to what the Dragoon is on about after stopping the baker from catching that fox in boots.
They rounded into a side alley that forced them into a line and continued in a maze-like path that left Celine confused on how they could possibly get back to the main road.
“Bahamut-“
“Call me Amu while we’re in Sa’Cardo.”
“…Amu, why did you do that to the baker?”
“That vixen is under my protection.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Why are PCs called Protected Citizens?”
“Because they are blessed by the Goddess.”
“Tch, no. Seems the teachings have changed there as well. The Protected Citizens are blessed by me and my siblings. Remember when I told you about how we had chosen saviors to seal the Goddess?”
“Aye…”
“When we did that, we started a chain reaction in the Goddess’ system that would label individuals of certain soul types as Protected by one of our powers.”
“The coming-of-age ceremony, I went through that, and the system labeled me as an NPC.”
“Because your soul type didn’t match with any of our powers.”
“I don’t understand.”
“All life on Ov’Rea has a soul, even trees. The souls of the races we created with the Goddess have unique connections. Since your soul didn’t connect with any of us at your ceremony, this means your soul is only connected with the Goddess.”
“So, a PC has their soul connected with you or your siblings and the Goddess?”
“Aye. Now you’re learning.”
Celine opened her mouth to retort to his smart remark only to smack into his back as he stopped and held his hand up for her to be quiet. He stepped away from the corner of the building they were at to stand in the middle of the branching alley, folding his arms on his chest. She leaned forward to peer around the corner and find a surprising scene.
“Way to go, Gauld! You got away with so much food this time!” A young dark elf boy was whooping in celebration with a dark elf girl as they stood in front of a humanoid twin-tailed kitsune with gold coloring in her fuzzy skin and those same boots on her little feet. On the ground between the trio sat the opened sack of food that consisted of bread, fruits and a sausage.
So that fox in boots was a hu'ani child! Celine’s mouth parted slightly in surprise to the group in the dead-end alley, not even taking notice of Bahamut in plain view as they dove into their small breakfast that they shared amongst themselves. She felt her heart go out to the clearly abandoned children of the back streets.
The kitsune’s ears perked up and she quickly raised her head up to finally catch sight of Bahamut. She jumped out in front of the dark elf children with a little blade unsheathed from her little boot, fur sleeked down with her tails lowered and ears folded back, as if she's ready to pounce forward to bite them with her fanged teeth. “This is our food!” She growled at the Dragoon in his own dark elf form.
“Hm, suit yourself.” Bahamut tilted his head back with a raised brow. “I was going to offer you a job that would fetch you enough to eat in a tavern tonight but since you’re not interested…” He started to turn to where Celine hid with Jack and Marshmallow.
“What job!” Called the boy as he grabbed hold of the little vixen’s wrist to force her blade down.
He turned just his face to look down at the trio. “What are your names?”
“I’m Belgos!” The boy spoke up, “My sister Chadra and our kitsune friend Guald.”
Bahamut motioned for Celine to come into view and he stepped close enough while holding distance from the trio, kneeling down to their height. “I am Amu and my friends here are Celine, Jack and Marshmallow. We’re in need of a guide to help us find the Adventure Guild headquarters and a tavern that we can rest for the night. If you help us out, we’ll buy you three food. Do an excellent job and I’ll even tip you.”
“…What’s the tip? It’s not to tell us how to live our lives like that last guy that hired us.” Gauld’s ear flicked with the corner of her lips turning up for a second, clueing Celine into the idea that the kitsune did something bad in response to that kind of tip.
Bahamut waved his hand and a pouch of clinking coins appeared in his palm. “This is your tip.”
The sight of the clinking pouch perked the trio to attention with Gauld deftly sheathing her dagger. “We’ll be your guide!”
“Promise not to lead us astray in hopes you can snatch this pouch from me?”
“Why ever would we do such a thing to as generous a customer such as yourself, sir?” Chadra spoke up and they presented them with such large innocent gazes.
Bahamut raised a brow as he stood and tied the pouch to his belt. “Promise.”
Celine had to admire how the Dragoon saw right through their innocent act that she would have easily given into.
A resounding sigh came from the trio as they nodded, “We promise not to lead you astray and steal from you.”
The opaque box appeared in front of the trio and they all accepted the quest that Bahamut nodded at Celine to provide. She didn’t bother arguing over giving quests to children since it would be to their benefit, and it is a harmless quest.
He nodded in satisfaction when he saw the acceptance message appearing in front of Celine then bowed respectfully to the young children, “Then please take us to the Adventure Guild.”
“Right this way, Sir and Miss!” Belgos pointed his finger and started proudly stomping as if he were in a parade, and with their precession it wasn’t a far off assumption of that being the case.
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